UMM Al QAIWAIN // Pupils at all the emirate's schools will have surveillance cameras trained on them in an attempt deter their bad behaviour - and that of their teachers. Education officials said students were using mobile phones in classrooms and attending school wearing inappropriate clothes. Meanwhile, teachers were setting a bad example for pupils by smoking in full view of them. These were some of the incidents the Umm al Qaiwain Education Zone said needed to be addressed.
The cameras will be installed in boys' schools first, then extended to every school by the start of the next academic year, Sheikha Amna al Mualla, the director general of the Education Zone, said yesterday in her first address to teachers in her new post. Cameras will be positioned at school gates as well as in classrooms and corridors, she said. The cameras would be linked to the authority's headquarters where the footage could be monitored by administrators.
Sheikha Amna said standards of behaviour were slipping despite official notices being sent to schools and meetings being held with teachers. "We recently sent circulars to all schools asking teachers and students not to use mobile phones in classrooms and confiscate students' phones once they are found using it at school, but our investigators have continued finding students with phones at schools," she said.
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